


So Sleep In The Fallout Shelter

by Eisenschrott



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-30
Updated: 2016-10-30
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:27:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8425378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisenschrott/pseuds/Eisenschrott
Summary: On one of many cold and lonely nights on Jakku, the Force gives Rey a taste of the battlefield.





	

The Graveyard was a scary place, sure. Blow the wrong fuse in a Star Destroyer’s corridor, and the blast-proof doors would lock, trapping you in a maze of rusted durasteel and intermittent light. Grope too near a leaking cable while trying to reach a salvageable engine part, and you’d be lucky if you got away with nothing worse than a burn. Fall into the hole a torpedo had carved into a command bridge or go down with a floor that couldn’t hold your weight, and you’d tumble in the dark and nobody would come to haul you out. Scream all you want in the deadness overhead, only the echo would come back at you.

So yeah, the Graveyard was scary. But then, all of the desert was scary. Any moment it could take you, quicker than a vworkka diving on a skittermouse. And return you as a heap of dried up bones you couldn’t tell apart from a rock, a dead thing. If it returned you at all.

Niima Outpost wasn’t scary, just ugly. Every time she drove back home from there at sundown, Rey thought that, all in all, she preferred the scary to the ugly. That never lasted long—Niima Outpost was where the spacers came and went; it was likely there that her parents would find her.

Sometimes she awoke panting in the dead of the night and ran out into the stinging night air, eyes scanning the starry sky, bare feet tripping on sand so cold it felt like water. Fast, fast—they might be out there, searching for her this very instant...

This was one of those nights. And like all others, her parents had not come back.

The stars burned, staring back at her. Not a light moved, not one inbound ship towards Niima Outpost. Rey stood shivering, holding the stars’ gaze, until something brushed her ankle. Maybe it was just the edge of her trousers flapping against her skin—but you could never be too careful. Hugging herself, she shambled back into the AT-AT.

It was cold inside, too, but less so than outside. A lone light flickered on automatically as soon as Rey stepped past the hatch and into the hold. Home smelled of metal, earth, and sweat. If she closed her eyes, she could smell a hint of the flower in its crudely carved durasteel vase, amidst all the parts she’d tried to fix the previous day on the crate that served as work table.

That sweet smell of living thing lasted barely for a breath. Her nose was getting runny. Sneezing, she climbed onto the hammock and curled up under the threadbare stormtrooper-issue blanket. The hammock swayed under her adjusting motions. In the dark, she faced the hatch that led to the walker’s neck joint. She could touch it if she stretched her arm out of the space warming up under the blanket. But she had no intention of moving.

Yet, with each sway of the hammock, a buzz grew in her ears.

Rey pulled the blanket higher up over her head.

The swaying slowed to stillness, but the buzz grew louder. Crackling with voices. Faint, but urgent. She could tell one in particular apart from all the others. A strained note in it made her look up from the hammock.

The buzz was only in her ears, she was sure—but at the same time, it felt like it was coming from beyond the neck hatch.

A moment’s hesitation, a muttered, “Not again,” and Rey slipped off the hammock and draped the blanket over her shoulders.

She picked up the welding torch from a makeshift shelf. She didn’t need to grope to find it. Now armed, she pressed the button to open the neck hatch. The rattle of metal grinding sand filled the house. Rey made a mental note to lubricate the cogs apparatus.

Down the neck tunnel, the voices were louder. _That_ voice was a man’s. Clipped. On Jakku, only some spacers coming from the Core worlds spoke like that. Bellowing. An Imperial. The buzz in the background had morphed, too; it was a combination of whirrs and rumbles and whizzes—engines at full steam, stomping footpads, muffled gunfire.

Rey tottered to a halt. This was a dream. Another ugly dream. She didn’t need to go on to know. Yet, a part of her growled, _What if there’s an intruder in the storage room?_ The cockpit was small and cramped, but she kept useful stuff in there, stuff that was hard to replace. That part of her clutched the welding torch tighter and turned it on, then, when the point was white-hot, pressed the button to open the cockpit hatch.

The darkness in her stored crates lay flickered for a moment, light and people superimposed on it. Then there was only the light. Daytime desert. The roar of blaster cannons. The durasteel shook with a low, constant quake. Rey huddled to the hatch frame for support, her heart syncing its thumps with those of the walker’s paws.

The pilot and gunner sat at their places, manoeuvring the AT-AT and firing its guns. Two officers in helmet and cuirass were standing, one at the rangefinder, the other holding onto the comm console and the holodisplay on it.

“What in Huttfucking hell...” he hissed. He was a big man, with a pale face despite the red rashes of sunburn. Torrents of sweat flowed from underneath his helmet. He radiated anger and pain in stomach-churning hot waves. Even if he looked strong and sound, to Rey it felt like watching a wounded animal. A luggabeast when the steelpeckers ganged up in a flock and managed to tear its implants off the flesh.

A blast shook the walker so hard that Rey tripped forward, dropping the blanket and screaming. But she didn’t lose her grip onto the welder. Your weapon is your life. She regained her footing, and found herself standing very close to the angry officer. At such a close distance, his emotions had a physical quality, like static-ridden energy fields. They had a colour, too—a dark hue of red, like rust or dried Human blood, that tinted the air around him.

He slammed a gloved fist on the console.

Rey flinched one step backwards.

The tactical display shrank to a corner, replaced by the shaky hologram of another officer in combat gear. This one was an old man with a serene expression. “Hellhound One to Hellhound Two,” the old man said in a casual tone. The rank squares on the upper corner of his cuirass were barely visible, but he had a lot of them. “Glad to hear from you one last time, General Veers.”

“Juno, what in blazes are you doing?”

“Take a gander at the tactical display,” the old man answered. “I thought you were more than capable of recognising a charge when you see one?”

“We’re out in the Goazon Badlands, for stars’ sake! How are we supposed to help you?”

“You aren’t supposed to help. I sent you there so that you would _not_ take part in this charge.”

“You can’t fucking be serious—”

Another blast, another shockwave. Rey glanced at the viewport just in time for an X-Wing to zap past, the roar of its engines drowning out all other sounds. Her inner ears ached and the wind was knocked out of her lungs. Those fighters seemed so much smaller when they were wrecks in the sand.

Blast bolts followed the X-Wing as it flew out of sight.

“Get him, get that bastard!” the pilot hollered. After another round of fire, both she and the gunner howled in triumph.

“Cover Esk Company!” the officer at the rangefinder barked. “Give them cover, shavit!”

Rey turned back to the angry officer. He had dropped to his knees. He hauled himself up, the agony of every strained bone joint rolling out of him. “You will get yourself massacred!”

“I am happy to die for the Empire.”

The pain changed, shifted to a paler colour and a slower crackling pattern. Sorry. Remorse. _Why not me?_

“It was an honour knowing you, Maximilian. My only regret is that I won’t get to know you carnally.”

Rey arched an eyebrow. The battle had been fought thirty years ago, so it made sense these folks spoke like old-timey people, but just how old must the old man be to say ‘know carnally’ instead of ‘shagging’?

“Sir, this isn’t the time for banthacrap!” As the angry officer sputtered out a string of curses, the sorrow ran deeper, mixing with a colder deep grey stream, slow-moving, sticky. Old pain, fermenting.

Rey’s heart shrivelled and her jaw clenched. She stared at the hologram of the old man, murmuring what the angry officer’s shouting really meant, “Don’t leave me here, don’t die, not you too.”

The cockpit shook harder than ever. Light filled it. Blinded, Rey cried out and covered her eyes, dropping the welding torch. An explosion, the end—but there had not been signs of a blast when Rey had first explored the wreck of Hellhound Two...?

The light dimmed again to the ordinary sunlight. The angle had changed. The whole cockpit had changed angle, because the walker was now lying on its side, the way Rey and the scavengers before her had found it. The pilot and the gunner were gone. But not the two officers. The angry officer sat slumped with his back to the capsized comm console. His uniform was so drenched with sweat the synthwool was almost see-through; he was trembling, his arms clasping his armour-clad chest. The anger had vaporised. What he projected now was a haze of sadness and exhaustion, slimy with shame that pinched at the eyes and constricted the throat.

The officer at the rangefinder was standing in front of him, holding his helmet from the chin strap in a clenched fist.

“Well,” the angry officer spoke up quietly, “now I have a vague idea how it’s like to be Force-sensitive. Small wonder Lord Vader was always cranky.”

“The drinking was bad enough,” the rangefinder officer said in a low, spiteful voice. “But sniffing glitterstim...”

“Brenn, I—”

“That’s a real low. For you, and for the Empire.”

“It was Moff Juno’s idea. Just this once, so I could be quickly up on my feet and... and lead you in battle today. Surviving wasn’t part of the plan. I... I’m sorry.”

The rangefinder officer drew in a sharp, hissing breath and raised the helmet as if to toss it at the angry officer.

“Stop!” Rey called.

The dream did not stop—her dreams _never_ stopped when she wanted them to—but the rangefinder officer didn’t hit the other man. He kept making those hissy breathing noises, biting his sun-cracked lower lip until it was bleeding. The angry officer gazed at the rangefinder officer’s boots. There was a stirring behind the tired haze, a loss so raw and shapeless it made Rey sick to her stomach.

“You and those survivors you rallied—will you try to reach our lines?” the angry officer asked. “Or surrender to the Rebels?”

“I doubt you are in a condition to offer advice, General.”

The angry officer nodded, then shivered violently. “I would only be a hindrance,” he breathed. “Leave me here, Brenn.” Again Rey could sense, as clear as if he’d spoken that out loud, that what he meant—what his thoughts were saying—was, _Please don’t leave me, not you too, not again_.

“That is my intention, sir.” The rangefinder officer clapped the helmet back on his head and left through the neck joint, pulling down his goggles over his eyes and the droplets at their corners, tears or sweat or both.

The angry officers shuddered again. The back of his helmet clattered against the console. He yanked the helmet off his head and threw it aside. The clang, and the blaze of red hot fury that ran down his arm, made Rey jump.

The fury dissolved into a choked noise, half a sob, half a heave. The angry officer gathered his legs in sand-spattered boots against his chest, buried his face in his knees, and didn’t make a sound. Not another whimper. Pain solidified him into a rock. A dead thing.

Rey staggered towards him, the hand that had held the welding torch now extended. “Hey, mister? Sir? Imperial? You aren’t alone. I’m... I’m here, too. I’m still here. I’m not leaving—”

Her hand hit a hard surface. She couldn’t see what that was in the sudden dark. She gasped and retreated her hand, achy and greasy—right, the engine lubricant reserve can, how could she forget it was stored here?

The daylight was gone. The battle had been over for many years. The desert had taken the angry officer, even if he had made it off Jakku. Rey’s feet were so cold she had lost sensation there. The welder’s point burned in a corner. She picked up the tool, thank the stars it wasn’t broken, groped for the blanket, and rushed back to the one graveyard on Jakku where not everything was dead.

**Author's Note:**

> Credit for the title goes to [_The Desert Is On Fire_](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0raj07as_cU) by Murder By Death - a most fitting song for Max Veers on Jakku, if you ask me.


End file.
